“Do you remember. The 21st of September? Love was changin’ the minds of Pretenders. While chasin’ the clouds away.”
There was no real reason to start with that line other than it’s this is the September newsletter and simply couldn’t help myself, I’m sure some of you will be humming the the tune by the end of this sentence.
Around and about with GBRC
The second round of GBRC tourism (the muddy ones) is underway and there was a last minute change of venue as Charlie cleverly remembered that the first Parkrun on the list was Cudmore Grove on Mersea island. After checking tide times, it looked like any would be Parkrun tourists could have been held up on the island due to natures watery cycle. So, what was due to be the last on the list was subbed in and a “small but perfectly formed” group of GBRC tourists went to Highwoods country park instead.
The three remaining destinations this year are:
26th October Thornham walks home | Thornham Walks parkrun | Thornham Walks parkrun
23rd November Bury St Edmunds home | Bury St Edmunds parkrun | Bury St Edmunds parkrun
7th December Mersea Island home | Mersea Island parkrun | Mersea Island parkrun
Cross country
It’s finally upon us, Cross country season begins this month with the first race being hosted by Ipswich Jaffas at the Ipswich High school, this place will be familiar to some of you as it’s where the Ekiden relay is held every year although the weather may not be quite as balmy as it usually is in early July and I suspect the course might be a little different as well. As I may have previously mentioned I have yet to complete a full season of cross country races and I’m hoping that the 2024/25 season will be the one. Just so you can all make sure your diaries are clear to get involved as well below is a list of the venues and dates. Everyone registered with GBRC is welcome to turn up and run. There will be information about the course and parking emailed round the week before the race.
Sunday 27th October 2024 – Ipswich JAFFA RC Ipswich High School, Woolverstone, Suffolk IP9 1AZ
Sunday 8th December 2024 – Halstead Road Runners Gosfield School, Halstead Road, Gosfield CO9 1PF
Sunday 12th January 2025 – Springfield Striders Agricultural College,Hilly Fields, Colchester Writtle, Chelmsford
Sunday 26th January 2025 – Harwich Runners Wix Equestrian Centre, Clay Hall/Clacton Road, CO11 2RU
Sunday 9th March 2025 – Great Bentley Running Club (the best club) Hilly Fields, Colchester
Awards night (no breakfast)
Talking of keeping dates in the diary free our annual award’s night is on 7th of December at Great Bentley village hall, this is a night of celebration for all the great running everyone has achieved. As a tradition there is normally a post awards night run and breakfast on the Sunday morning but not this year as the Springfield Striders have their cross country race taking place at Gosfield.
This won’t stop us having a great time and I’ve heard there’s nothing better to clear a thick head than blasting through 5 miles of mud and consuming coffee and cakes afterwards. There’s only one way to find out if that’s true or not…………
Club Champs
It’s still not too late to put forward your race finish times into the club champs as entries for this are open until 10th of November. The criteria for entering is that you would have needed to run the race in club colours and submitted the time within 30 days of the race.
To see the current results please click the link and have a look.
GBRC Club Champs 2024 – Google Sheets
Training
There is a full calendar of training going on throughout the rest of the year. Below is the link to what sessions are on offer, you will notice that its colour coded to help you decide which ones will work best for your training.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14Dc07-ABjXJ1SORcbBrnqyCXF49fgASE/view?usp=sharing
What have we all been up to?
September has been a month jam pack full of racing and it seems like you’ve run all of them and some. Starting with the very first day of September we had the London Big half a fantastic race and one that I would highly recommend doing especially if you want to run in the capital but don’t fancy the distance or the crowds of the London marathon you get exactly the same vibe just on a smaller scale. Seven of us men ran the course with Craig Slocombe whipping round in a PB time of 1hr 18mins 52 secs.
Next up is the awesome challenge of the Long Course weekend.
This challenge begins in Masham on the outskirts of Nidderdale on the Friday where you get to swim in the stunning Grimwith Reservoir deep in the Yorkshire Dales (1.2 mile or 2.4 mile).
On the Saturday is the cycling with either the 56 mile or the 112 mile cycle route set in the Yorkshire Dales National Park which also incorporates some of the sections in Tour De Yorkshire over the hills of the Yorkshire Dales with over 1500m of ascent.
Finally, on Sunday you get to run any distance ranging from a Marathon, Half Marathon, 10k or 5k taking in some of the spectacular surroundings and undulating Countryside finally returning to Masham, where it all began on Friday! Below is a list of the guys that took on the challenge and what they achieved.
Dave Allen – (The Full)- Swim (2.4 mile), 112 mile bike distance and Marathon.
Paul Arnold- Swim (2.4 mile), 56 mile bike distance, Half Marathon
Phil Presland- Half Marathon and support crew.
Taking on some rough terrain of his own Piers Marwick ran at the Roman river trail half marathon. This is a popular self navigation race that takes you on an undulating course round the fields and villages west of Colchester which Piers did in a sold time of 2hrs 37mins.
The same day Mark Harris was up at the famous Great North run. This is a half marathon which sees runners head out from the city of Newcastle to the coast of South Shields. Mark ran it in a great time of 2hrs 4mins but didn’t overly enjoy the experience as it rained for the whole event and his main take away is that it was just very wet!
Myself and Tom Higgins made our way to Pleshy a village just North of Chelmsford for the Pleshy half marathon. The weather was warm, and the course was fairly hilly but it didn’t stop Tom achieving a PB by a whopping 9 minutes and I myself managed a course PB.
Tom 1hr 46m 35s(pb), me 1hr 27m 9s
Craig Mitchel was the only Bentley at the Mayflower Trail Challenge this year. This is a trail half marathon that runs from Harwich to Manningtree and looks quite fun to do. Craig had a great race finishing in 8th place with a time of 1hr 42m.
Another solo Bentley to run a half marathon this month was Tim Clifton at the Maldon Half marathon. Tim’s time was 2hrs 4mins 41secs, I have run this race in the past and the course was decidedly up and down, was it as hilly as I remember Tim?
One more half marathon to mention before I move on, and this one was just up the road in Ipswich. The route for this takes you around the streets of Ipswich town and out and under the impressive Orwell bridge, I would like to have a crack at this race one day below are the times for the guys that did it this year,
David Jones 2hr 26m, Martin Cotton 2hr 13m, Tim Clifton 2hr 7m, Gavin Byrne 1hr 23m
There’s been a total of 8 different half marathons run by Bentley boys this month!
Darren David took himself to Norwich to run in a 10k race there. This has been going for 8 years now and had a field of nearly 7000 runners so its certainly not a small event at all. Darren made it round the streets of Norwich in 57mins 46secs
There were two local village 10ks on consecutive weekends this month these being the Dedham and Langham 10k’s and both of them were well supported with Blue’s, two of them taking away trophies for their efforts at Dedham! The race results for both are as follows,
Dedham 10k
Craig Slocombe 36m 29s, Flynn Eyre 38m 27s, Steve Bullen 40m 37s, Rob Dyre 41m 24s, James Eyre 41m 52s, Danny Draper 45m, Ray Baggs 46m 39s, Martin West 1h 4m 46s
Langham 10k
Gary Cooper 1hr 12m 20s Mark Harris 1hr 1m, Robbie Lee 48m 58s, Dean Pepper 48m 49s Charlie Keitch 39m 56s and Craig Slocombe 36m 16s (pb)
Great running from everyone that ran in these races there were some strong results at both of them
Mark Crittenden earnt himself a pair of socks at the Sudbury trail run having run a total 8.3 miles on this lapped trail course.
Finally (I think) we had Paul Davidson, Tomaz Komorowski and Rob Dyer take on the Surry tops LDWA event which is a 50 mile trail course made up of footpaths and bridleways. This was no mean feet especially as they ran the local Park run in the morning, nutters!
As you can see there has been lots to report on this month and I hope I managed to cover everyone’s achievements, it certainly has been a super September so well done everyone, and now for the bit you’ve all been waiting for……………
Runner of the month
This month’s runner of the month has been with club for a little while now and shows up regularly for training and has consistently improved for doing so. I also believe he regularly visits the gym to help support and improve his running,
All of the effort has certainly worked for him and proof of this was a half marathon PB by huge 9 minutes at Pleshy half marathon, so for that reason Charlie and I felt that Tom Higgins should be Septembers runner of the month. Well done Tom! We just wanted to add a special mention for Dave Alan who just over a year ago became quite ill after catching a mystery illness whilst away on a works trip, This really knocked Dave for six and ever since then he has been steadily and methodically building himself back up doing what he call’s “double days” to get back where he wanted to be. This has certainly worked as on the final day of the Long Course weekend after the 2.4 mile swim and 112 mile bike ride Dave still managed the marathon on the final day in a time of 3hrs 34min, that’s quite a comeback Dave, well done.
Great Bentley Running Club 